When SimpliHere founder Joanna Rosenberg was caring for her mother, Ida, an ALS patient, she experienced first-hand the unforeseen challenges of daily life for ALS patients and caregivers.
The Challenges Of Living With ALS
ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is a motor neuron disease (MND) that causes the death of neurons controlling voluntary muscles, thus weakening the patient’s muscles and impacting their physical function. This is all the scientific, polite way of saying that, over time, patients lose near-complete control of their arms, legs, and facial muscles.
Joanna struggled with the difficulty of assisting her mother with day-to-day activities (even the most simple tasks like eating and toileting become complex endeavors) and had to adjust to the emotional weight of watching her role model become trapped in her own body.
As one ALS patient recently described, living with this disease is like sitting on your hands and talking with twenty marshmallows in your mouth…all the time. While each patient experiences a different rate of symptom progression, the bottom line is that ALS takes away your ability to communicate verbally and physically. How do you tell your caregiver you are thirsty when you can’t control your tongue or throat muscles? How do you research doctors and support groups when your fingers are too weak and shaky to type?
A New Tool For Patients And Caregivers
Fortunately, SimpliHere has developed a user-friendly, no-nonsense app to help patients and caregivers communicate, stay connected to communities, and access valuable resources like news updates, products, and services designed to help ALS patients. But our real pride and joy is Louise, the app’s voice-activated personal assistant that lets patients and caregivers access help in hundreds of ways just by holding a button and saying, “Hey, Louise.”
Meet Louise, your ALS personal assistant.
What Can Louise Do For You?
Helping You Communicate
Forget about hitting ten different buttons or using a full keyboard to communicate your needs and wants to your caregiver or family. Use Louise to activate a one-touch menu to communicate pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness, and feelings of happiness, frustration, or appreciation. It’s there in large buttons specifically designed for patients with weakening mobility.
Connecting You To The Wider Community
ALS is a master isolator. That’s why it’s so important to stay connected to those you care about, and to build an ALS community that understands what you and your family are going through. Louise can find you the right community forums to help you connect to other patients and caregivers facing the same challenges as you…right from the comfort of your own home.
Keeping You In The Know
Although ALS research and awareness has experienced amazing growth in recent years, access to the vast amount of information and resources can be very time-consuming to navigate…That’s why we wanted to have as many patient and caregiver resources as possible in one easily-accessible place. Louise connects you to on-demand ALS news and keeps you and your caregivers up-to-date on clinical trials, research milestones, and legislative updates.
Finding You The Products And Help You Need
The average caregiver spends 11 to 12 hours a day providing hands-on for their ALS patient. They don’t have time to sit at their computer and research products, find answers to their questions, or track down services. Louise allows you to easily program your circle of care providers such as doctors, family members, and support groups into the app so that you can communicate and connect with your ALS team.
You can also ask Louise to find you specific equipment (like chairs and other aids) to purchase or borrow through your local ALS chapter, nonprofits, and the broader market. You can also search for the leading voice bank tools to help you preserve your unique voice as ALS progresses. Let Louise do the research for you.
Download Louise for your iPhone here!
About SimpliHere
SimpliHere simplifies caregiving for those impacted by ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases. Through a mobile app and personal voice assistant, patients and caregivers can easily communicate, manage daily life, and stay connected with one another. The mission of SimpliHere is to help patients and families face the overwhelming nature of ALS by helping them to communicate basic needs, easily reach caregivers, and find comfort with other individuals sharing the same challenges. SimpliHere encourages patients and families to raise their voices and contribute valuable information to medical communities to help advance critical research on neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS – with the ultimate goal of wiping out the disease once and for all.
